SPH Stories

India Ornelas from the University of Washington School of Public Health has been analyzing and studying the effect United States legal status has on the mental health of undocumented Latinx immigrants and is now looking at how COVID-19 is impacting them.

Esther Nguyen, set to be one of the first-ever graduates of the Food Systems, Nutrition and Health Major from the University of Washington School of Public Health, was selected to represent the School as its gonfaloniere during this year's UW Commencement.

Screening for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) based solely on symptoms can be unreliable in older adults, suggests the findings of a University of Washington study led by Alison Roxby, an assistant professor of global health at the UW Schools of Public Health and Medicine.

A new project led by Judd Walson, a professor of global health at the University of Washington Schools of Public Health and Medicine, has received nearly $1.4 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to monitor the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Africa and how it effects vulnerable populations.

A new training developed by the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice at the University of Washington School of Public Health will equip an army of contact tracers with the skills they need to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

For many public health professors, online teaching alone wasn’t enough.

When the University of Washington announced classes would move online in response to the novel coronavirus, Professor Amy Hagopian knew she would have to do more than just pivot to remote teaching. She had already organized 10 spring quarter projects for her students, which were designed for a world without a pandemic or the need for social distancing.

Juan Osorio-Valencia from the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington Schools of Public Health and Medicine is one of four graduate students from the UW awarded Social Entrepreneurship Fellowships by the Population Health Initiative.

Magali Blanco and Gabino Abarca from the University of Washington School of Public Health were selected to take part in the inaugural Latino Center for Health Student Scholars Fellowship program.

The program recognizes students who have demonstrated a strong commitment to promoting the health and well-being of Latinx communities in Washington state. Blanco and Abarca, both first-generation college students, will each receive $7,500 to support their education.

Dean Hilary Godwin has been named to a panel advising Seattle Mayor Jenny A. Durkan on strategies for short and long-term community-wide infection mitigation efforts.

The experts are meeting weekly with Mayor Durkan to provide advisory support as the City of Seattle works to achieve the rapid scaling of public health infrastructure required to meet its goal of sustainably mitigating the impacts of COVID-19.

What do communities most vulnerable to COVID-19 need to know about the disease, and what are the most effective methods for reaching them? These are questions a partnership between the University of Washington School of Public Health and the Washington State Department of Health seeks to answer.

Shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers and recommendations made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to wear face masks during essential outings have left many wondering what safe alternatives can protect them from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

In response to a request made by the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries (L&I), researchers from the University of Washington School of Public Health tested the performance of different materials to use for possible handmade face masks.

Easing social distancing measures put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) – for each household to have contact with one or two others – would reconnect most households in a community and allow the virus to keep spreading, according to a website developed by researchers from the University of Washington.

As Washington became the first state in the nation to identify an outbreak of the novel coronavirus, faculty in the School of Public Health quickly grasped that life was about to change.

“We were ramping up, knowing that we were going to need to shift to online teaching at the end of winter quarter,” said Dr. Sara Mackenzie, director of the B.A./B.S. in Public Health–Global Health and principal lecturer in Health Services.

Hilary Godwin, dean of the University of Washington School of Public Health, was the lone public health voice among a group of aviation professionals that testified May 6 before a Senate committee on the impact of COVID-19 on the industry and the next steps for reopening amid the pandemic. (Watch the hearing.)

Researchers from the University of Washington Schools of Public Health and Medicine have received $5.8 million from the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator initiative to conduct a multi-site randomized controlled trial to determine the effectiveness of two drug regimens – hydroxychloroquine with and without azithromycin – for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The University of Washington Population Health Initiative’s COVID-19 rapid response grants program has awarded funding to nine projects involving the School of Public Health. These awards are intended to accelerate research that addresses a variety of population health-related issues caused by the pandemic.

To address the surge in the need for health care for people with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a number of jurisdictions across the United States have established alternative care sites in convention centers, public parks, shopping malls and other non-traditional environments.

A new study led by researchers from the University of Washington School of Public Health is examining the risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission between humans and their pets.

The project is a collaboration between the Center for One Health Research, housed in the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, and the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (WADDL) at Washington State University.

A group of scientists, including Thomas Fleming, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Washington School of Public Health, has developed a new approach for clinical trials during infectious disease outbreaks such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Researchers from the University of Washington School of Public Health are gathering data and stories on how individuals, families and communities in Seattle and King County, Washington, are coping with the stay-at-home measures put in place to combat the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The King County COVID-19 Community Study (KC3S) began gathering data in mid-March and will do so through May 5.